Proper 20, September 21, 2001
Community Church of Wilmette & The Church of Jesus Christ, Reconciler
Gospel: Matthew 20:1-16 (The Laborers in the Vineyard)
Other Readings: Exodus 16:2-15; Ps. 105:1-6, 37-45; Philippians 1: 21-3
Preacher: The Rev. Laura Gottardi-Littell
+++
A few months ago I read an autobiographical story in the New York Times magazine. I couldn’t put it down. It was well written and compelling, and offered a window into a world unfamiliar to me, the world of serious drug addiction.
It was a story by and about David Carr, now columnist for the New York Times. The story was about his life as a crack cocaine addict, and his recovery. It’s not a pretty story. He writes about his stints in jail and rehab, his use and abuse of other people, mostly women. He got his girlfriend, who was also his crack dealer, pregnant, and they had twin girls. After they both did a stint in rehab, his girlfriend slid back into drug addiction, and David obtained custody of the twins. In some real ways, the baby girls become his salvation, his motivation for slowly getting his life back on track. It is a stark, sometimes brutally honest memoir with a hopeful ending. Carr is careful not to portray himself as a hero.
He writes; “Here is what I deserved: hepatitis C, federal prison time, HIV, a cold park bench, an early, addled death.
Here is what I got: the smart, pretty wife, the three lovely children, the job that impresses.”
In the course of overcoming his addiction and getting his life together, Carr became an attentive father and husband, a hard-working newsman, a person he describes as genuine and often pleasant.
Carr’s story is not an explicitly religious story. He didn’t one day see the light of God, fall to his knees and repent. His salvation came from sources other than organized religion: rehab, therapy, work, his children. Though maybe God had a behind-the-scenes hand in his recovery. And rehab and 12-step groups do contain a spiritual component. They ask people to take responsibility for their lives and make different choices, which is what people do when they identify themselves as sinners and repent.
I mention Carr’s story because he is someone who ended up with a life far better than he “deserved.” Our gospel story is also about people who get more than they “deserve.”
In today’s gospel story, a landowner pays laborers who have worked just a few hours the same amount he pays laborers who have worked all day in the hot sun.
Our worldly sensibilities tell us this is not fair, not the way it should be. People who work hard should earn more than people who work a little. That’s only just. And people who are hard-working and law-abiding deserve to have good jobs and lovely families. Not former crack addicts like David Carr.
Neither Carr’s story, nor the story of the laborers, is a simple Aesop’s fable, where the good guys win and the bad guys lose. These are complex stories, as are many of the stories in the Bible, as are many of our stories.
The moral of David Carr’s story is not “abuse drugs and other people, and you will end up happy and successful. “ For every story like Carr’s, there are many more stories of addicts who end up friendless, doing lengthy jail time, or dead.
In our gospel story, the moral of the story is not “treat workers unfairly” or “be lazy and you will get ahead.”
Both stories say to me instead that God can work in extraordinary and unpredictable ways in people’s lives. That sometimes the outcome is unpredictable. God doesn’t give us what we deserve, in the ways we usually understand deserving. God’s economy is different from the market economy.
In today’s gospel, Jesus challenges conventional ideas about who should get what. Remember he is speaking to a 1st century audience who believed that you got your just desserts. If you were struggling, God was punishing you. If you were content and had what you needed, God had smiled on you. Jesus wants to show it’s not as simple as that.
Psalm 103 says that “The Lord is full of compassion and mercy, show to anger and of great kindness. God has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our wickedness.”
God ultimately wills grace and mercy for all of us. It doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences for bad behavior. Many times there are and should be. We can create our own hell on earth. But Jesus shows us a merciful God who wants us to go beyond simple notions of legalistic justice. Wants to push us beyond the idea that those who live by the letter of the law will be saved, but those who struggle and make mistakes are forever doomed. This is a God who likes to eat with tax collectors and sinners. And presumably, drug addicts. He doesn’t like them to go on sinning, but he understands and cares about them. God loves us even when we are not the people our world considers righteous.
And we, like God, need to be about grace and mercy. Do we feel that only certain people are deserving? Do we sit in judgment upon other people or ourselves? It’s easy to judge, but that’s not the kingdom of God. In God’s kingdom, there’s enough for all. And it pleases God to be kind to the ones the world says don’t deserve kindness.
Jesus is issuing a direct – and confusing --challenge to our notions about fairness. It’s certainly not the only place in the gospels where he does this.
Take the story of the Prodigal Son, which is in some ways similar to the story of the laborers. The prodigal leaves home and lives a life of partying and irresponsibility. He wastes all his father’s money and ends up broke and empty. Thoroughly discouraged and ashamed, he returns to his father’s home, admits what he has done, and asks to be treated as a servant. His father instead embraces him lovingly, and honors him with a lavish party. All this dismays the prodigal’s older brother. Here he’s been upright and obedient to his father all his life, and when did he get a party like that?
The father resembles God, who graciously welcomes sinners when they admit their mistakes and return to him. The older brother reminds us that those who consider themselves upright should seek to welcome back those who have gone astray. Not be angry or envious because their father is celebrating the lost one’s return. Just as all-day laborers shouldn’t get upset because they got paid the same as some who worked fewer hours.
In the story of the laborers, the landowner resembles God. Those who come to God late in the day, or late in life, receive the same grace as those who have been faithful to God from the beginning. God loves us all with an equality that doesn’t make sense, that isn’t based directly on our actions. We can’t earn or control grace; it’s freely given by God, like manna from heaven.
These are not simple stories, the laborers, the prodigal son, or David Carr’s story. They attack our preconceived notions about fairness and deserving. They are like Zen koans or works of art. The kind of sense they make is not a logical, linear, left-brained sense. Jesus is confounding our intellect and appealing to our other ways of knowing. Does it make sense that David Carr ended up happily married, with three beautiful children, working for the New York Times? Does it make sense that the prodigal son gets a big party? Does it make sense that the laborers who came at the end of the day made as much money as those who’d been working all day? Not really. Not sense as the world knows it. But that’s the kingdom of God. It operates by different rules and a different economy.
I want to be sure that you understand I’m not condoning abuse of drugs or another person, and I’m not condoning irresponsibility. We are responsible for our lives and we need to live them honestly and make amends where needed. What is redemptive about Carr’s life, for me, is his honesty and the work he did to change his life. The prodigal son likewise admitted the error of his ways, then received grace.
Having said that, I hope you can see the thread that I think connects these stories. God gives grace freely, inexplicably, and sometimes extravagantly, like manna in the wilderness, a day’s wages for a few hours of work, a lavish party for a sinner. Jesus said that he came to call sinners, not the righteous, and that he desires mercy, not sacrifice. He wants us to get beyond a legalistic idea of justice, a strict eye-for-an-eye mentality. He challenges our idea that we can buy or control grace. He challenges our ideas about who is deserving. He wants us to understand that with God, sometimes the last are first, and the first last.
Can we live out this vision of extravagant grace in our homes, churches, and the world?
+++
Tuesday, September 23
Sunday, September 14
Sermon Ordinary Time Proper 19
Exodus 14:19-31
Psalm 103:(1-7), 8-13
Romans 14:1-12
Matthew 18:21-35
(Bellow are the notes I had for preaching the sermon)
Do not Judge but forgive.
I)Introduction
To understand our Gospel we must understand that sin as the state which breaks relationship with God and other human beings. We need to understand that this is simply the given state we are in. We do and will simply do things that break or threatens our relationship with God and will have and will do repeatedly things that threatens or breaks relationships with other human beings, this will happen in the church as it does in the world. The difference between church and world here isn’t necessarily our actions but what we are called to and what some of us do, and hopefully all of us strive to do. But what should be obvious both from Paul’s admonitions we have heard to day and have been hearing and Peter’s own question to Jesus all in the church have never fully fulfilled this goal nor should we imagine that simply achieving the goal however its ideal is seen would restore our relationship to God. What Paul and Jesus are saying is that the church when it acts like the church should have a certain atmosphere where we admit we are sinners and God’s forgiveness and grace is able to be experienced and received and given. Thus what our texts our lifting up before us is the call not to have all the right answers or the right politics or social organization but to admit we are sinners and seek to receive and offer God’s forgiveness and grace. Thus when it comes to correcting faults we are to focus on our own sins before God and when it comes to others faults we are to seek the path of restoration of relationship, and if we are wronged we are to give the same forgiveness and grace god has given us because that is the only true path to the restoration of relationship.
II) But how does that work?
Now you might want to say yes but. What if so and so does this or what of this or that situation. I’ve been attacked, or my employer mistreats me or other people I know, or a husband abusing a wife. Let me just say that Jesus is not dealing with nations and counties and cities and corporations. Though some of these principles can work here, but first and foremost we must begin with the church. So then are the parties in these situations within the church well then the first part of Chapter 18 deals with it, to some degree. And I will emphasize that nothing in this demands that one stay in an unsafe or dangerous situation either mental or physically.
Peter has his own situational question. He kind of gets the point about how to deal with disputes and offense between members of the church. He understands it is to be a process of repentance restoration and forgiveness. However, Peter is also a realist. Peter knows people can be forgiven , repent and be restored to relationship and offend the same way or in different ways again and again. So, Peter wants to know how many times do we go through this process of forgiveness and restoration before we say no, no more we are sorry you are beyond the pale. You are unforgivable and beyond grace and love and forgiveness. Peter I think on one hand things he is being generous on the other is afraid Jesus is going to say something beyond what he can get his mind and heart around. So, he says 7 times, that’s how many times I should forgive someone? (Smile) That’s a good answer right Jesus. And Jesus has to disappoint peter and us, and says no and instead says a big number and just to make sure we don’t think that we are actually to count to 77 (would any us be able to keep track of that, maybe some) he tells a parable.
III) Admitting we all are sinners who can be God like in forgiving
The point here is that on the one hand we have been forgiven by God beyond our ability to have made things right between God and us, on the other there is no way no matter how small that another can truly make up for an offense or a sin against us. We are not restored to relationship either with God or with each other if we insist on view things we might do to hurt or sin against the other as things that can be made up some how, paid off like a debt. The only way to restoration is if there is a desire to be in true relationship on the part of both the offended and the offender. And finally we all have been offenders even if we only have sinned against God. This means that when we are offended or sinned against we are to act like God has acted towards us and all humanity.
IV) examples from the tradition
Stories from the early Desert Amma’s and Abba’s about forgiveness of being God like with our sisters and brothers through covering over their sins.
Pg 24 and 25 and 87
V) Conclusions:
What I hope we can see is from our Scriptures today and from these sayings and stories from the early monastics and hermits is that we are to become God like in our readiness to forgive and offer grace to others. We do this because we too need this and God has already shown us his mercy and grace in forgiving us and continually being forgiven. We are to seek to be more aware of our own faults than of the faults of others- not so we have a poor self image but that we are opening ourselves up to the power of God that is known in weakness. Lastly that by seeking to forgive or cover up another sins or faults and being willing to not judge others we open up the way to repentance and to restoration of relationship. The point is neither to leave people in their sin or to keep people in abusive and dangerous situations but to offer all away out of unhealthy and destructive patterns, and offer communities in which we are seeking to live together in restored relationships centered on God who sought us out when we did not want to be in relation to God, when we were stuck in our destructive patterns, patterns we see still in our society and culture. We are called as the body of Christ to seek to be the alternative and the door of that alternative is non-judgment and forgiveness that admits that we all are sinners in need of grace and forgiveness. And so we offer it and receive it. Something I think
Psalm 103:(1-7), 8-13
Romans 14:1-12
Matthew 18:21-35
(Bellow are the notes I had for preaching the sermon)
Do not Judge but forgive.
I)Introduction
To understand our Gospel we must understand that sin as the state which breaks relationship with God and other human beings. We need to understand that this is simply the given state we are in. We do and will simply do things that break or threatens our relationship with God and will have and will do repeatedly things that threatens or breaks relationships with other human beings, this will happen in the church as it does in the world. The difference between church and world here isn’t necessarily our actions but what we are called to and what some of us do, and hopefully all of us strive to do. But what should be obvious both from Paul’s admonitions we have heard to day and have been hearing and Peter’s own question to Jesus all in the church have never fully fulfilled this goal nor should we imagine that simply achieving the goal however its ideal is seen would restore our relationship to God. What Paul and Jesus are saying is that the church when it acts like the church should have a certain atmosphere where we admit we are sinners and God’s forgiveness and grace is able to be experienced and received and given. Thus what our texts our lifting up before us is the call not to have all the right answers or the right politics or social organization but to admit we are sinners and seek to receive and offer God’s forgiveness and grace. Thus when it comes to correcting faults we are to focus on our own sins before God and when it comes to others faults we are to seek the path of restoration of relationship, and if we are wronged we are to give the same forgiveness and grace god has given us because that is the only true path to the restoration of relationship.
II) But how does that work?
Now you might want to say yes but. What if so and so does this or what of this or that situation. I’ve been attacked, or my employer mistreats me or other people I know, or a husband abusing a wife. Let me just say that Jesus is not dealing with nations and counties and cities and corporations. Though some of these principles can work here, but first and foremost we must begin with the church. So then are the parties in these situations within the church well then the first part of Chapter 18 deals with it, to some degree. And I will emphasize that nothing in this demands that one stay in an unsafe or dangerous situation either mental or physically.
Peter has his own situational question. He kind of gets the point about how to deal with disputes and offense between members of the church. He understands it is to be a process of repentance restoration and forgiveness. However, Peter is also a realist. Peter knows people can be forgiven , repent and be restored to relationship and offend the same way or in different ways again and again. So, Peter wants to know how many times do we go through this process of forgiveness and restoration before we say no, no more we are sorry you are beyond the pale. You are unforgivable and beyond grace and love and forgiveness. Peter I think on one hand things he is being generous on the other is afraid Jesus is going to say something beyond what he can get his mind and heart around. So, he says 7 times, that’s how many times I should forgive someone? (Smile) That’s a good answer right Jesus. And Jesus has to disappoint peter and us, and says no and instead says a big number and just to make sure we don’t think that we are actually to count to 77 (would any us be able to keep track of that, maybe some) he tells a parable.
III) Admitting we all are sinners who can be God like in forgiving
The point here is that on the one hand we have been forgiven by God beyond our ability to have made things right between God and us, on the other there is no way no matter how small that another can truly make up for an offense or a sin against us. We are not restored to relationship either with God or with each other if we insist on view things we might do to hurt or sin against the other as things that can be made up some how, paid off like a debt. The only way to restoration is if there is a desire to be in true relationship on the part of both the offended and the offender. And finally we all have been offenders even if we only have sinned against God. This means that when we are offended or sinned against we are to act like God has acted towards us and all humanity.
IV) examples from the tradition
Stories from the early Desert Amma’s and Abba’s about forgiveness of being God like with our sisters and brothers through covering over their sins.
Pg 24 and 25 and 87
V) Conclusions:
What I hope we can see is from our Scriptures today and from these sayings and stories from the early monastics and hermits is that we are to become God like in our readiness to forgive and offer grace to others. We do this because we too need this and God has already shown us his mercy and grace in forgiving us and continually being forgiven. We are to seek to be more aware of our own faults than of the faults of others- not so we have a poor self image but that we are opening ourselves up to the power of God that is known in weakness. Lastly that by seeking to forgive or cover up another sins or faults and being willing to not judge others we open up the way to repentance and to restoration of relationship. The point is neither to leave people in their sin or to keep people in abusive and dangerous situations but to offer all away out of unhealthy and destructive patterns, and offer communities in which we are seeking to live together in restored relationships centered on God who sought us out when we did not want to be in relation to God, when we were stuck in our destructive patterns, patterns we see still in our society and culture. We are called as the body of Christ to seek to be the alternative and the door of that alternative is non-judgment and forgiveness that admits that we all are sinners in need of grace and forgiveness. And so we offer it and receive it. Something I think
Tuesday, September 2
Sunday in Ordinary Time, Proper 17
Note: What follows is mostly long hand notes for the sermon I preached this past Sunday August 31st, 2008. I am not going to try to reconstruct a manuscript, but thought the notes might be of interest and able to follow and give the gist of the sermon preached.
Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45c
Romans 12:9-21
Matthew 16:21-28
Introduction:
Distractions.
Paul is exhorting us on how those who are the church are to act as the body of Christ. This passage should probably be one we are meditating on as we as council and church reflect on how we are as a congregation and how and if we are desiring and being called into deeper aspects of being church together. The story of Moses and Jesus’ saying about taking up cross and loosing and finding our life are where we must begin if we are to find ourselves on our way to living out Paul’s exhortation to us. I our longings and desires are to truly find there rest in God and what God is calling us to then we must turn aside from our selves from our preferred or comfortable identities and stand before the one who will burn away all that is untrue without destroying who we are, and we will find that the way of the God of Moses is the way of the Cross. Paul in his exhortation is describing a community all of whom are on the journey with and to the cross, who have died to their selves. Today we are asked to turn aside; from the place we have brought ourselves and face God, in burning bush and upon the cross. We are called to turn aside from the merely human attempts at identity and community. We have examples of this turning that is the encounter with God:
I. Encountering God as burning through our identities to find our unique idenity
Moses at the Burning Bush Who is Moses? Murderer? Son of Pharaoh? Israelite? Leader of a Nation? Mystic?
Who are you? Who are we? Who is God?
II. Jesus and the Cross. Finding life through death.
Who does Peter think he is. Simply a fisherman Son of Abraham following the Messiah. Restorer of Israel. A holy politician possibly warrior. Future noble in the new Israel? Advisor to the Messiah. Peter has yet to embrace the divine identity the one that truly fits his unique self. In not yet having moved from the various human possibilities of his self he can’t see the divine plan of the cross, the self-sacrifice the divine one has always already undertaken, and his words where just a little before was the mouth piece of God becomes the mouth piece of Satan. Peter is holding on, he wants Jesus to preserve his life and let us be honest if the leader of a movement starts talking about being killed by the authorities lets be clear those closest to him are probably going to die as well, so Peter is also speaking out of self preservation. To which Jesus tells Peter and those around him and we who follow him now that the attempts to preserver our selves our lives, work against truly living and finding who we are.
III A community of those who all have taken up their cross and lost themselves in Christ.
Paul describing the life of a community that has turned aside and taken up the cross for the sake of Jesus.
Paul Says “Let Love be genuine” What is Love? Why do we love. Paul pairs genuine love with hating evil and holding fast to what is good. In ourselves, in the world in others. Love is shown in mutual affection, love is other directed. Then we are to serve the Lord, rejoice, be patient, pray.
Serve others both in the church and those who are strangers. Associate with the lowly, be at peace with all. Never avenge yourselves. And here we begin to clearly see that this is the way of Christ and the cross. What is the reason and purpose for vengeance? It is an act of self-preservation. Revenge seeks to right things to prevent a wrong to the self through either doing the same violence and wrong to another or another wrong in hopes that one will not be wronged again. Let me be clear this is not about being in an abusive relationship or marriage and finding ways to get out, or to bring the law to protect self and others. Vengeance in fact does not seek to remove ourselves from the situation, but in pride keeps us in the context from which we should remove ourselves. The way of the cross and self-denial is not being doormat but in fact is the way to be more truly and authentically oneself amongst others. What this exhortation of Paul assumes is a community all joined together in following the way of the cross all together taking up the cross and following Christ. Paul and Jesus do not envision this path as an isolated and lonely one. A personal path but not an individualistic path. In that sense we can not know truly what it means to take up the cross and follow Christ if we imagine it as a individualistic task I do on my own for Christ. Because the carrying of the cross has the need to be other directed and not solely focused upon the self.
Conclusiong: The Church as the community of encountering God and other in taking up ones Cross.
The community of the Church first requires that we have encountered God, who calls us to turn aside like Moses. Encountering God as the knowable but incomprehensible source of all life and being, whose self has not other source than itself and thus is always directed towards others, Creation, we as human beings, the other members of the trinity. This encounter calls us from the good and bad identifiers of self we have accumulated over the years and invites an encounter with the self God created us to be, who we are in our uniqueness before God. We confront God and ourselves when like Moses before the burning bush who confronts a self he does not know or understand in his encounter with God. But we may also find that like Peter and to some extent Moses, we simply add this unique identity before God to all the other senses of ourselves we may have, rather than taking it up as the true one. And if we have done this and I think we all have, then Jesus comes and says that no we are not simply to add following God and Jesus to things we do and Follower of Christ or Christian as some earthly and human identity, but are called as those who bear the name of Christ to die to all other identities, to die to the life we believe we need to preserve and hold on to, for only then will we truly find our lives preserved and our true selves before God. This is so because we can not be truly other directed if we are concerned for our own welfare our own status in a group preserving our own identity and place in the world or the church. In the end Paul exhortation brings home the reality that can only be our true selves before God if we are that self in the midst of others who follow Christ and in the world, where we must attend more to others than to ourselves. We can do this because as believers if we are all truly following the way of the cross will find that while we are not seeking to preserve our place and our rights and our identity others who are bound to Christ and have taken upon themselves the cross are in fact looking out for us in love, and seeking to up hold us in joy or sorrow, in tribulation or peace. And this, my friends is true community that only God initiates and creates and which we through the cross enter into. This is beyond friendship, which requires sameness; it is beyond the human desire for community and safety. It is the love of God poured out into our hearts that flows out towards others without thought of preserving ourselves for it rests in the knowledge that our true self is securely held in God’s loving embrace.
Exodus 3:1-15
Psalm 105:1-6, 23-26, 45c
Romans 12:9-21
Matthew 16:21-28
Introduction:
Distractions.
Paul is exhorting us on how those who are the church are to act as the body of Christ. This passage should probably be one we are meditating on as we as council and church reflect on how we are as a congregation and how and if we are desiring and being called into deeper aspects of being church together. The story of Moses and Jesus’ saying about taking up cross and loosing and finding our life are where we must begin if we are to find ourselves on our way to living out Paul’s exhortation to us. I our longings and desires are to truly find there rest in God and what God is calling us to then we must turn aside from our selves from our preferred or comfortable identities and stand before the one who will burn away all that is untrue without destroying who we are, and we will find that the way of the God of Moses is the way of the Cross. Paul in his exhortation is describing a community all of whom are on the journey with and to the cross, who have died to their selves. Today we are asked to turn aside; from the place we have brought ourselves and face God, in burning bush and upon the cross. We are called to turn aside from the merely human attempts at identity and community. We have examples of this turning that is the encounter with God:
I. Encountering God as burning through our identities to find our unique idenity
Moses at the Burning Bush Who is Moses? Murderer? Son of Pharaoh? Israelite? Leader of a Nation? Mystic?
Who are you? Who are we? Who is God?
II. Jesus and the Cross. Finding life through death.
Who does Peter think he is. Simply a fisherman Son of Abraham following the Messiah. Restorer of Israel. A holy politician possibly warrior. Future noble in the new Israel? Advisor to the Messiah. Peter has yet to embrace the divine identity the one that truly fits his unique self. In not yet having moved from the various human possibilities of his self he can’t see the divine plan of the cross, the self-sacrifice the divine one has always already undertaken, and his words where just a little before was the mouth piece of God becomes the mouth piece of Satan. Peter is holding on, he wants Jesus to preserve his life and let us be honest if the leader of a movement starts talking about being killed by the authorities lets be clear those closest to him are probably going to die as well, so Peter is also speaking out of self preservation. To which Jesus tells Peter and those around him and we who follow him now that the attempts to preserver our selves our lives, work against truly living and finding who we are.
III A community of those who all have taken up their cross and lost themselves in Christ.
Paul describing the life of a community that has turned aside and taken up the cross for the sake of Jesus.
Paul Says “Let Love be genuine” What is Love? Why do we love. Paul pairs genuine love with hating evil and holding fast to what is good. In ourselves, in the world in others. Love is shown in mutual affection, love is other directed. Then we are to serve the Lord, rejoice, be patient, pray.
Serve others both in the church and those who are strangers. Associate with the lowly, be at peace with all. Never avenge yourselves. And here we begin to clearly see that this is the way of Christ and the cross. What is the reason and purpose for vengeance? It is an act of self-preservation. Revenge seeks to right things to prevent a wrong to the self through either doing the same violence and wrong to another or another wrong in hopes that one will not be wronged again. Let me be clear this is not about being in an abusive relationship or marriage and finding ways to get out, or to bring the law to protect self and others. Vengeance in fact does not seek to remove ourselves from the situation, but in pride keeps us in the context from which we should remove ourselves. The way of the cross and self-denial is not being doormat but in fact is the way to be more truly and authentically oneself amongst others. What this exhortation of Paul assumes is a community all joined together in following the way of the cross all together taking up the cross and following Christ. Paul and Jesus do not envision this path as an isolated and lonely one. A personal path but not an individualistic path. In that sense we can not know truly what it means to take up the cross and follow Christ if we imagine it as a individualistic task I do on my own for Christ. Because the carrying of the cross has the need to be other directed and not solely focused upon the self.
Conclusiong: The Church as the community of encountering God and other in taking up ones Cross.
The community of the Church first requires that we have encountered God, who calls us to turn aside like Moses. Encountering God as the knowable but incomprehensible source of all life and being, whose self has not other source than itself and thus is always directed towards others, Creation, we as human beings, the other members of the trinity. This encounter calls us from the good and bad identifiers of self we have accumulated over the years and invites an encounter with the self God created us to be, who we are in our uniqueness before God. We confront God and ourselves when like Moses before the burning bush who confronts a self he does not know or understand in his encounter with God. But we may also find that like Peter and to some extent Moses, we simply add this unique identity before God to all the other senses of ourselves we may have, rather than taking it up as the true one. And if we have done this and I think we all have, then Jesus comes and says that no we are not simply to add following God and Jesus to things we do and Follower of Christ or Christian as some earthly and human identity, but are called as those who bear the name of Christ to die to all other identities, to die to the life we believe we need to preserve and hold on to, for only then will we truly find our lives preserved and our true selves before God. This is so because we can not be truly other directed if we are concerned for our own welfare our own status in a group preserving our own identity and place in the world or the church. In the end Paul exhortation brings home the reality that can only be our true selves before God if we are that self in the midst of others who follow Christ and in the world, where we must attend more to others than to ourselves. We can do this because as believers if we are all truly following the way of the cross will find that while we are not seeking to preserve our place and our rights and our identity others who are bound to Christ and have taken upon themselves the cross are in fact looking out for us in love, and seeking to up hold us in joy or sorrow, in tribulation or peace. And this, my friends is true community that only God initiates and creates and which we through the cross enter into. This is beyond friendship, which requires sameness; it is beyond the human desire for community and safety. It is the love of God poured out into our hearts that flows out towards others without thought of preserving ourselves for it rests in the knowledge that our true self is securely held in God’s loving embrace.
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